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I have a short piece up at FirstPost about the use of Brad Pitt in World War Z; how this deviates from the book, and what the presentation of this character, and this arc, does for the film as a whole.

I did enjoy the movie, though the readiness with which the international community decides that Brad Pitt is humankind’s only hope made me roll my eyes rather a lot. In one scene (spoiler warning) Jerusalem is overrun, and even as its powerful political figures scramble to defend themselves, getting Pitt’s character out of there and onto a plane is a priority–his safety appears to be some sort of global policy. But Elyes Gabel’s truncated bit as mad scientist delighted me, as did Ruth Negga’s small role in the second half.

And it’s occasionally very beautiful. I know I just compared a scene in Man of Steel to a Beksiński painting so I suppose it’s possible I just have that style on my mind this month. And so this image on the poster instantly reminded me of this painting.

Or this much-publicised image (I was struck by how much of the few really good parts of this movie I’d already seen in the trailers and promotional images) which looks like it could fit quite seamlessly into any of the artist’s works.

For all that, though, WWZ was just a not-particularly-good, not-particularly-clever, big budget disaster movie. I wasn’t offended by it, anyway.